What is going on with the East Alton Rotary Club? We will cover it here, along with all sorts of other interesting and off-kilter stuff that will inform, enlighten and amuse you.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

PUZZLER

Problem:A pharmacist has 10 bottles of extra-strength Rogaine. One bottle is
defective. A regular pill weighs 5 grams, while the faulty pills weigh 6
grams each.
The mean old pharmacist tells his assistant, George Bailey, to weigh a
pill from each bottle to find the bad batch. But George is in a hurry
because he has a date in five minutes. He figures out which bottle is
faulty by using the scale only one time. How does he do it?(click below for the answer)

Solution:George takes one pill from the first bottle, two from the second, etc.
He ends up with 55 pills, which should weigh 275 grams (55 pills times 5
grams). If they weigh 276 grams, he has one faulty pill, and he knows
it's from bottle #1! If they weigh 278 grams, he has three bad pills
from bottle #3, etc.